Mother and Child Rights

Comprehensive and appropriate development for effective results

UNCRC “All women of us should have honouring, service and love above all other thing” William Dunbar 15thc Scottish philosopher.

Gender Matters.1. There is a strong relationship between a woman’s decision-making power and nutritional wellbeing.2. A woman’s status in the home plays an important positive role in determining child nutritional status.this varies in different regions of the world being more obvious in south Asia and southern Africa.3. In a Malawian society, positive health outcomes tend to accompany greater female decision-making power.in her community, the role and its effects are less important, but if in the home she has such power, the outcome is strongly positive.4. Economic status is also strongly linked, particularly for the poorest families.

5. Improvements in their status therefore can lead to better antenatal care and birthing success for most women in areas of the world where maternal mortality is frequent.

Women in the southern African state of Zululand have indicated their needs [Rights] as follows.

Commitment, lifelong partnership, love, equality, complementary work, personal development as people, sexuality expressing love, respect and commitment, choice of pregnancy time, using contraception, having 2 or 3 children between 20-35 years of age, adequate ante-natal care, safe delivery with a trained competent midwife, and health care for mother and child, are all included in their expectations.

Presently however, with men working away from home, there is racism, migrant labour, land acquisition, and commercial farming, so men are only at home for a few weeks in a year, society is destroyed, lower standards of maternal health appear, so homes become broken.

Consequently, women are abused, and have not been able to exercise their rights, particularly, rights to choose when to have a baby, when the couple use contraception, when and how they use their rights to continue their own education, are relegated.

The communities we will be working with will have approved of our presence and involvement. Based on preliminary approaches to the villages concerned, they will understand that our education for them is designed to produce better health for women and children. In due course the women should feel it easier to earn for the family and achieve a higher status in the family, – social and economic.

Rights of the Child:

Children have rights from the time of their birth until their 18th birthday. (UNCRC). link here to UNCRC

Education should include include issues of survival, protection, participation and development.